


Red Right Hand

by Lafayette1777



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Hux coming to find Ren after his massive fuckup on Starkiller, Hux is an angry little meatball who doesn't like feelings, M/M, Major Character Injury, Oh My God, Post-Movie(s), and ambiguous touching, do they love each other? do they hate each other?, there's a few angst ridden emotions, this may have already been done a million times oh well, title from the Nick Cave song, what have i become, who knows - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 04:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5613586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lafayette1777/pseuds/Lafayette1777
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>If the world were black and white, then Kylo Ren would be Hux’s very own gray area.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Right Hand

**Author's Note:**

> stormpilot + kylux = yin + yang

Beneath Hux’s is gaze there is only white, and crimson.

The trail is not hard to follow, even as the earth splits beneath his feet. That single mindedness his mother had praised and his father had feared helps him now; a tree falls, its branches nearly brushing his shoulders as it tumbles down in his wake, and he doesn’t flinch. 

His father was a gentle man; Hux is not. 

A patch of stark black comes into view, and Hux aims his boots toward it. Kylo Ren has managed to drag himself away from the trees, out into the open. His helmet is off; his hair flecked with snow and probably blood, though Hux can’t make out the red against the black. There’s something strikingly beautiful, almost, in Ren’s dark, splayed form in contrast to the solid, blinding white.

The earth rumbles and Hux is reminded that now is not the time to appreciate art. 

“This went well for you, I see,” Hux remarks, scathingly, once he sees that Ren is conscious. 

The answering sound, he suspects, is meant to be something savagely angry, even if it’s closer to a vaguely defiant squeak. Ren has never been one for witty comebacks, which leaves Hux to enjoy his monopoly on the trait. He drops down beside Ren’s prostrate figure and lends him a once-over with carefully impassive eyes. 

“Transport is on its way,” Hux says, reaching one hand out to inspect the blaster wound in Ren’s side. He uses two fingers to pull back the fabric of the onyx robe for a glance at the gore beneath. The blood’s already begun to coagulate - not life threatening. And the other lacerations appear to be lightsaber-inflicted, which means they’ve cauterized themselves. Ren has turned the snow scarlet, but he will not die. 

Hux lets out a long breath, and withdraws his hand. Ren catches his wrist, fingers sliding off the bone and latching, vice-like, onto the cuff of his coat. Hux looks at him. 

Ren’s expression, though somewhat obfuscated by the slice bisecting his face, asks a question. After a moment, Hux deigns to answer. 

“Of course I came back for you,” he replies crisply, eyes on where Ren’s bloodied hand clasps at his wool cuff. “Supreme Leader would have my head if I didn’t.”

“He may yet,” Ren growls, finally, as there comes another deafening crack from the core of the planet. Hux sends him a lacklustre glare as he hears the roar of the transport ship approach. 

“Get up,” Hux mutters, tugging his coat out of Ren’s hold only to reach around and link their hands a moment later. It becomes evident, once Hux has yanked him into an upright position, that Ren can’t stand on his own. His teeth are sunk into his lip as if he’s barely holding back a groan, and his eyes have snapped shut. 

The sight of him in such obvious pain stirs something in Hux that he has honestly know idea what to do with. 

Ren sways, for a moment, hand on his side, until Hux slips a supportive arm around his massive frame. The ground quakes, somewhat unnervingly, beneath his feet. The margin between breaking atmo and the destruction of this planet is going to be thin. Hux thinks, distantly, that if he were the sort for panic, now would be an appropriate time for it. 

Instead, he half drags Ren through the snow, toward the waiting cargo bay doors. Kylo is mostly deadweight, shivering slightly, and smearing blood on Hux’s clothes. Hux is aware that he should be more disgusted than he is. 

“Make contact with the _Finalizer_ ,” Hux snarls at the first faceless officer he sees. “Have a medical team on standby until we arrive.”

There’s a hurried _yessir_ and some irritating scurrying, and then they’re lifting off just as the last few patches of solid earth begin to crumble. It’s a turbulent ride up into the clouds, and a less than graceful break from the atmosphere. Ren, from where Hux has laid him on the bench beside him, has a grip on Hux’s elbow that is just shy of uncomfortably tight. His eyes are clenched shut to the point where his facial wound has begun to ooze again because of the contortion of his features. 

There’s a jolt as they finally push through to the void of space, and a flash of fear cuts through Hux like an axe. He’s not sure whether it’s his own, or Kylo’s; the force has a tendency to muddle things when one of them has their guard down. Hux, sometimes, gets pieces of things he’s not sure he wants - fragments of feelings he’s not in the business of dealing with. Kylo’s mind is a place he’s happy to know only a shred of, but the universe seems to have other plans. 

“You’re trying so hard to ruin us, aren’t you?” Hux murmurs, reaching out one hand to inspect a lock of hair that’s fallen across Ren’s face. The end is tipped with blood. 

Kylo doesn’t open his eyes, but grips Hux’s elbow tighter. 

 

 

The first time Hux had kissed him, Kylo Ren had punched him in the face. 

He still has the slightest hint of a white scar where Kylo’s gloved fist had connected with the bridge of his nose. Kylo, of course, could have run him through with a lightsaber, or choked him to death with the Force, but the fact that he chose an only mildly painful physical reproach meant that he had no real objections. The punch itself, then, was virtually affectionate. Hux had slapped him across the face in retaliation and then they’d kissed again, mercilessly.

Hux, against his better judgement, is contemplating that day as he watches a droid disinfect that jagged line across Ren’s face. The supervising nurse knows better than to question Hux’s presence; he’s sitting, hunched slightly, on a supply container in the corner of medbay with his coat around his shoulders. He’s not _brooding_ \- that’s Kylo’s territory - but the scowl and limpness of his hands is enough to inspire silence in the room. 

The droid takes a moment to inspect its handiwork, until Ren’s eyes crack open and he sends it a dismissive glare. It’s weak intimidation, by Kylo’s standards. And Hux’s, too. Truthfully, the whole situation is wrong, and pathetic, and Hux shouldn’t be here. He should be on the bridge, or with the troops, and none of this should matter at all. 

He turns toward Kylo.

Hux approaches where Ren has been stripped down to his undergarments and laid out on a poorly padded stretcher. He’s still shivering, rather pitifully. Hux does not offer him his coat, even if it would be a deliciously poignant insult to do so. 

“You are _exhausting_ ,” Hux breathes, when their eyes meet. Ren does not dispute him. “I heard your patricide was a success, though.”

Kylo’s face twists, momentarily, beneath the wound. The scar will be impressive, if it stays; it already seems to be extracting some of the boyishness from his features. Some of the softness. It will take a little getting used to, Hux thinks. 

Kylo’s expression, now, seems to be caught between something smug and something leaden. 

“Anything from Snoke?” Ren asks, finally, his voice a rasp. Hux stares at Kylo’s hand, clenched into a fist beside his bandaged hip, for a long moment before answering. 

“We’re en route.”

Kylo lets out a sigh that nearly crackles with fear. He is burned, and stitched, and weak - Hux turns to leave on the notion that they’ll both be better for it, in the long run, if they’re not in the same room together. He doesn’t make it far, though, before a heavy hand glances off his hip, and last night’s bruise there. 

Hux is not entirely sure why he turns, or why the edge of his mouth lifts up, almost imperceptibly. The Force, maybe. The usual answer, dull though it may be. Regardless, he ends up back at Kylo’s side, and then one suddenly ungloved hand that looks suspiciously like Hux’s own is running through black hair. Hux watches as the negative space around the wound in his face goes slack at the touch. He shouldn’t watch, but he does. 

They are only parsecs away from the Supreme Leader, and the man beneath his hand is still bleeding. Hux, however, is becoming rather inconveniently aware that he, too, is weak. 

And maybe even fond.

**Author's Note:**

> lafayette1777.tumblr.com


End file.
